Studio Wall Defleciton Angles?

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nickyD
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Studio Wall Defleciton Angles?

Post by nickyD »

Hi everyone, this is my first post and I'm basically a studio novice that is going to build one. Being your not supposed to have any parallel walls is a studio, does any one know the minimum deflection angle of the walls in accordance to the others in the room? I'm building an addition onto my home that will include about 500 sq ft. for my new studio. I'm planning on building the studio's exterior walls square to the foundation and then adding angled walls inside, is this feasible or asinine? Thanks and I'll have plenty more questions down the line I'm sure.

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Soundman2020
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Re: Studio Wall Defleciton Angles?

Post by Soundman2020 »

Hi Nicky, and welcome!

There is an announcement at the top of the forum about what to do to assure getting as many responses as possible. The announcement leads to this post. Actually, several people, who are experts on this forum, will not reply if you don't do what is written in that post. Many others who are very helpful, will not reply out of respect for the moderators' wishes.
Being your not supposed to have any parallel walls is a studio,...
When you say "studio", do you mean just a practice area for musicians, or an actual control room plus live room plus iso booth? Much more detail about what you want to do would help! You know it, but we don't, unless you tell us!

Being your not supposed to have any parallel walls is a studio,...
Regarding non-parallel walls, like many other things on the internet there are plenty of myths and half-truths about that, but very little substance. Except here. You'll find plenty of substance here! In fact, studios actually can be built very successfully with perfectly parallel walls. If you do it right. The only real reason why you want to avoid parallel walls in a room, is to eliminate flutter echo, but there are other ways to deal with that. If you want to build parallel, you can, but it will need careful design and treatment.

That said, in a control room it helps to splay the walls and the ceiling, for several reasons, among them controlling first order reflections from the speakers into your ears. So many control room (CR) designs you see on this forum actually do have splayed walls and ceilings. Many others do not.

What IS important about your room is that the ratio of the dimensions to each other is good, not bad. You need to find a ratio of ceiling heght to room length to room width that fits one of the good ratios. A square room (for example, 2.5m x 3m x 3m) will have terrible acoustics, and a cube (where the ceiling is the same height as the length and width of the room, eg: 2.5m x 2.5m x 2.5m) will be even worse. Avoid those like the plague. Search this forum for "room ratio", and you'll find more info than you ever knew existed on the subject! You need a good ratio for your room, if it is a CR.

If you are talking about a live room, tracking room, or practice room, then that's a different matter. Angled walls and non-parallel surfaces are useful there, but once again are not an absolute must. They help to give the room its "character".

does any one know the minimum deflection angle of the walls in accordance to the others in the room?
That depends a lot on the speaker position and angles. If you use the "standard" angle of 60 degrees, then you need to splay your side walls 6 degrees from the centerline, and the ceiling is splayed 12 degrees. If you use a greater angle for the speakers, then you need a greater splay angle. But that is for CRs. For LRs, you can pretty much angle them any way you want, as long as you avoid obvious pitfalls like extremely tight angles and curved walls.

I'd suggest that your first order of business (after reading and complying with the post I linked to above :) ) is to download SketchUp from Google (it is free), and learn it. Its what we all use here to model our studios. It's a bit cumbersome and confusing when you start, but once you get the hang of it, its a great tool for 3D design. It takes a while to learn and get used to the quirkiness, but it is really good. And you can't beat the price!

Once you have mastered SketchUp, then build an accurate 3D model of the space that you have available, showing all the relevant existing walls, doors, windows, stairs, ducts, pillars, and similar stuff that cannot be changed. We've seen people spend time here working on other people's plans, only to be told "You can't do it that way, because there is a pole in the middle of the room", or "Oh gee, I forgot to mention that there is a door to the bathroom in that wall".

Post your Sketchup model here, comply with the "Read this first" post, and I'm sure folks here will be happy to comment on your design/build, and help you learn this stuff, like many of us did here.

And the "search" button on this forum is your new best friend! You'll be amazed at what you can find here, and unlike some of those "other" places on the internet, there actually is good, solid acoustics theory and science here. In fact, some of the regular posters build and treat world-class studios for a living. One of them is Rod Gervais. Buy his book, and read it thoroughly. It's the best possible investment you can make in your studio.

http://www.johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewt ... ook#p84527



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